Firefall will let you kill your enemy's pets, you monster

In an interview with Shacknews , Red 5 CEO Mark Kern has revealed that Firefall will feature MMO style pets available in game. "When's the last time you heard about a shooter with pets?" said Kern. "Not only can you get a pet, but we're thinking that there's actually an item you can buy in the store to load your gun with special ammunition so you actually shoot the other guy's pet. Shooting someone's pet will 'despawn' it for a little while.

It's not clear exactly what advantages this petsecution will grant you, but it'll certainly annoy the the owner. The first special pet will be available to unlock tomorrow as part of Firefall's ongoing beta , in a promotion called 'the crystallite challenge' and will be based on a character from a Penny Arcade strip called 'The Merch'. Using a character created as a parody of aggressive merchandising to promote your micro-transaction based game is a daring move but Kern seems upbeat, saying "The Merch is awesome because he's all about merchandising and he fits with our item-based theme."

Firefall is slated for release in December. If you're interested, check out our Firefall preview .